Blame It on the Bellboy (1992)
Directed by Mark Herman

Film Review

It probably seemed like a good idea on the drawing board.  Gather together an attractive, big name cast, parachute them into one of the world's most attractive cities and propel them though a multiple pile-up of misunderstandings... On paper, it sounds like a winning formula that could hardly fail.  Whilst the basic premise obviously has some mileage and it is not inconceivable that the film could have worked, Mark Herman's sloppy script and even sloppier direction kills stone dead any comic potential Blame It on the Bellboy may have had at the conception stage.  The result is a flabby, silly, overly convoluted farce which tries desperately hard to be funny but only delivers a fraction of the laughs you would expect from such a distinguished cast. 

Just as he was the best thing in Withnail & I, Richard Griffiths is the best thing this far lesser film has to offer - his saucy mix up with Patsy Kensit is matched only by Penelope Wilton's scary audition piece for The Godfather IV - these are the only two sequences that make the film worth watching. Dudley Moore (who is so much better in Arthur) stands more chance of making us see the funny side of the Black Death than he does with this film.  Fortunately, despite the mediocre script, the cast perform a remarkable salvage operation (at the risk of their future careers) and the film just about passes for entertainment, but only after you have downed a glass or two of your favourite alcholic beverage.

Film Synopsis

Three men with virtually identical surnames check into the Hotel Gabrielli in Venice.  Melvyn Orton is a timid estate agent from the UK who has come to purchase a house for a client, and risks losing his job if the deal falls through.  Maurice Horton is an overweight provincial mayor who has arranged a holiday romance through a lonely hearts club, even though he is already a married man.  Mike Lawton is a hired assassin who has been sent to take out a local mobster.  The hotel's bellboy has difficulty understanding English and consequently mixes up the three men, giving each of them a message intended for one of the others.  When Orton is misdirected to a villa which turns out to be a gangster meeting place, he falls into the hands of armed hoodlums, who are convinced he is a hitman.  After he has finally convinced his aggressors of his true identity, Orton has no choice but to join them in their criminal exploits.  Meanwhile, his near name-sake Horton mistakes a local estate agent, Miss Wright, for his intended love-hungry spinster, an illusion which Miss Wright fails to dispel as she seems willing to offer him anything he asks for, on the expectation of earning a massive commission from the sale of a rundown house.  Horton's real date, Patricia Fulford, ends up being pursued across Venice by the killer Lawton, who believes she is his target.  When Lawton realises his mistake, an unlikely romance develops between him and Patricia.  Things become even more confused when Horton's wife turns up, at the most embarrassing moment possible.  From this moment on, anything is possible - and all because a bellboy has trouble with his aitches!